Did you know that asking a new kind of question can immediately change your life?

In April 1997, I discovered a new way to change your life that I named The Afformations Method. Since then,Afformations have helped tens of thousands of people worldwide to boost self-confidence, improve relationships, attract more abundance, quit smoking, and enjoy a deeper spiritual connection. Here are my tips to use Afformations to change your life.

1. Take 100% responsibility for your life.

The first step to making any important life change is to take responsibility. Look at that word responsibility—it’s comprised of the words response and ability, meaning “the ability to respond”. When you take responsibility, you are telling yourself and the universe, “I am able to respond to what’s happening in my life, and I am not a victim.” This is the first step to lasting change.

2. Ask yourself what you really want.

It’s true: You can’t get where you’re going if you don’t know where that is. Many of my clients start our first coaching session by saying, “But I don’t know what I want!” I argue that you do know what you want, but you are too scared to admit it. Ask yourself, “If time and money were no object, what would I really love to be, do, or have?” If the answer doesn’t frighten you a little, you may not be asking big enough!

3. Ask empowering questions.

Afformations are empowering questions that immediately change your subconscious thought patterns from negative to positive. Most people are
unconsciously asking themselves very disempowering questions like, Why can’t I do anything right?, Why am I so broke?, and Why can’t I lose weight? When you constantly ask disempowering questions, whether you’re doing it consciously or not, your mind will find a way to make it so. Change your disempowering questions to empowering questions like, Why am I good enough? and Why does everything work out for the best?

4. Stop blaming others.Blaming others leads to the emotional block called resentment. The word resentment comes from a Latin word meaning “to feel again.” Focusing on past hurts and slights may give you a feeling of control, but it’s a false feeling because the past is gone. The quality of your life depends on just two things: the quality of your communication with the world inside of you, and the quality of your communication with the world outside of you. Use Afformations to improve the quality of communication with both worlds that you live in.

5. Stop blaming yourself.

This is the flip side of blaming others. Blaming yourself leads to the emotional block called guilt. Guilt is simply resentment turned inward. Just like focusing on how others hurt you in the past, focusing on your mistakes only intensifies feelings of inadequacy and not-enoughness. Talk to yourself like you would talk with a friend who is hurting. Would you tell your friend they were “stupid” or “not good enough”? Of course not! Then don’t say these things to yourself.

6. Give yourself permission to succeed.

Most people are driving down the road of life with one foot on the brake. As much as you want something—whether it’s more money, to lose weight, be healthier, find your soul mate, or quit a bad habit—your brain is hardwired to keep doing the things it’s been doing. That’s why you must consciously give yourself permission to accept the good things in life, even if it’s been years since you’ve done anything nice for yourself.

7. Challenge your assumptions.

You are continually forming assumptions about life and your relationship to it, but most of them are unconscious and disempowering. Most people assume negative things like I’ll never be very successful or I’m not good enough. If those are your unconscious assumptions (beliefs), your actions will tend to be tentative, fearful, and anticipating failure—and your results will be less than desirable. Challenge your assumptions by realizing that just because you’ve failed in the past does not mean that you are a “failure”. Fail is a verb that every highly successful person has done. The difference between them and the average person is that highly successful people persist even in the face of temporary failure.

8. Take out your head trash.

Most people are constantly focused on what they lack, what they don’t have, and who they are not. I call this your head trash. Most of us could hardly count the number of negative thoughts we’ve had about ourselves. Imagine if every negative thought you had was a piece of trash in your home. Now imagine that you never took out the trash. Your home would be pretty disgusting, wouldn’t it? Well, many people’s heads are like that—there are literally decades of trash that they’ve never taken out. Take out your head trash and you’ll find that it’s a lot easier to breathe—literally!

9. Keep a Daily Action Journal.

When you wake up in the morning, write down 5 things you would like to do that day. I call this your Daily Action Journal. The key is to make them things you can control. For example, in business “Make 10 phone calls” is something you can control. “Get 10 sales” is not, because you can’t control whether someone buys from you. Similarly, in life you can control “Drink 8 glasses of water”, but you can’t control “Lose 10 pounds.” The key to happiness is to realize what you have control over and what you don’t.

10. Keep a Daily Gratitude Journal.

Every night before bed, write down 5 things you are grateful for. When I started this practice in 2007, I was $40,000 in debt, had no friends, and was working out of my parents’ basement. 24 months later, I had a six-figure book publishing deal, a beautiful home in the Midwest, was 100% debt-free, and married the love of my life. Of course, I’m not suggesting that problems magically fix themselves. However, asking empowering questions and taking focused action changed my life in ways I couldn’t have imagined even five years ago. You can choose right now to ask empowering questions, even if you’ve been asking negative questions for years. Change your questions, challenge your assumptions, and watch your life change in miraculous ways.

Noah St. John is famous for inventing Afformations® and creating customized strategies for fast-growing companies and leading organizations around the world. His sought-after advice is known as the “secret sauce” for creating instant superstar performance.